"I AM BEING PUNISHED"

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24835, 7 February 1942, Page 4

"I AM BEING PUNISHED "

Written for the Otago Daily Times By the Rev. Gardner Miller

The title of my article this week will probably remind you of words you have often used. Again and again men and women upon whom some calamity has fallen, either upon themselves or their families, have said to me, "I am being punished for—" and here would follow something in the nature of a confession. Generally the confession is not of having committed something terrible, but of some neglect or harshness or obstinacy. I notice, too, that in many of the letters that come to me, arising out of matters upon which I have written in this column, the same expression occurs. I suppose all of us. at some time or another, have ruefully exclaimed that what is happening to us now is the result of former stupidity if not of wilful sin. I think it is good for us to connect happenings in our lives and to realise that there is always a train of consequences following upon our actions. But I find, unfortunately, that most people who talk to me about this matter, or write about it, have the idea that it is God Who is punishing them. Nothing could be further from the truth. God is never mean. I remember a woman saying to me, as I lifted the coffin of her baby to carry it downstairs, "God took my baby because I loved it too much." It took me a long time to convince that broken-hearted mother that you cannot love a baby too much and that God is not jealous and small and mean. This question of punishment, which weighs upon many sensitive people, arises from an altogether

Wrong Idea of God. To put it quite bluntly, many people would recoil from the idea that Jesus would hurt or punish them; they would say that Jesus is so kind and understanding that: He would not hurt anyone; but the same people would not hesitate to believe and say that God punishes.not only the wicked, but also the good when they do or think wrongly. Now. anything that makes God less kindly and tolerant than Jesus is false. All we know of God is through Christ. To think of Jesus is to think of God. I'am afraid that many people still have the idea that God is a kind of celestial policeman, and that if it were/not for Jesus, Who intervenes between God and poor mortals; we would all be flung into hell. I have always held that there is ho need for anyone to apologise for God. and I would add that there is a very great need for simple New Testament instruction about the character, of God. Too many Christian people carry over into their thinking the harsh Old Testament ideas of God.

We make His love too narrow By false limits of our own; And we magnify His strictness With a zeal He will not own.

God does not punish us; we punish ourselves. He does not hurt anyone; we hurt ourselves. To think that God is ever watching you in case you make a faulty judgment or do something that is selfish or even wrong, and later on —perhaps years afterwards—pounces on you with pains and penalties— to think that, Isay, is an insult to your own intelligence. When Cain cried out "My punishment is greater than I can bear," it is to be understood that his punishment was his mental sufferings and his outlawry for being a murderer, not that God was crushing him. Much of the trouble in our lives is due to faulty thinking. When we are told that God is not mocked it does not mean, at all that God has it in for us when we play the fool. It means simply that life is so constituted that wrong-doing brings its retribution, that whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap. God is not always on the watch to vindicate His honour, but He is always on the watch, I believe, to help men and women to overcome their weaknesses and to encourage and strengthen them when things are hard against them Never think that you must grovel before God. He does not want any of us to crucify our reason in order to save our soul. He is Creator, but He is also the Companion of us all, and Jesus Christ is the personification of His companionship. When you are perplexed and perhaps fearful about what is happening to you, always think of God as though He were Christ, as He is, and a load will be lifted from your mind. Be in Tune And that leads me to say that if you and I will take the trouble to keep in step with God daily we will never need in the hour of distress to wonder where He is. The daily 'Huning in" to God is the best tonic that I know for depression of spirits. lam not suggesting that everything we do is in line with the will of God. Even the best of us make many mistakes. And I have a wholesome horror of the person who speaks and acts as if he (or she) and God were on such terms of intimacy that he (or she) could do no wrong. Most of us have found that we have suffered more from professing Christians than we have from those who make no profession of religion at all.

To be in tune with God does not mean that everything in the garden is lovely, but it does mean that, because of being in tune, the world is not a wilderness. Whatever is is not always the best that can be. That is a theory" to which I never could subscribe. I can conceive of lots of things in life not being the will of God and yet, by and by, we shall be able to look back and see them fitting into the scheme of things. It. is a great adventure to be partners with God in shaping and moulding your own life, in taking your circumstances, no matter how hurtful thev are, and building them into your character. And the things that hurt, the punishments if you like, don't come from an angry and jealous God, but from our own shortcomings and shortsightedness.